


Excerpts From The Tragedy of Loki of Asgard (Sakaar Version)

by CatalenaMara



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Dubious Consent, Flashbacks, Loki makes it up as he goes along, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Ragnarok, Thor: Ragnarok (2017)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-31
Updated: 2018-03-31
Packaged: 2019-04-16 01:44:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,748
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14153985
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CatalenaMara/pseuds/CatalenaMara
Summary: Loki rewrites his play for a new audience.  Topaz is unimpressed.  The Grandmaster’s sycophants, all jockeying for position in The Grandmaster’s orbit, are intrigued.  And The Grandmaster wants a lot more than melodramatic stories.





	Excerpts From The Tragedy of Loki of Asgard (Sakaar Version)

**Author's Note:**

> It took watching “Thor: Ragnarok” with closed-captions on before I realized what Loki was saying an instant before Thor sees him: “There was a wormhole in space and time beneath me. At that moment, I let go.” (And then he laughs.) WTF?!?!?! Arguably THE most traumatic moment in Loki’s life and he laughs it off?!? I had to write a fic… and here it is.
> 
>  
> 
> Many, many thanks to my betas [](http://www.archiveofourown.org/users/Tenaya/profile)[**Tenaya**](http://www.archiveofourown.org/users/Tenaya/) and [](http://www.archiveofourown.org/users/Muriel_Perun/profile)[](http://www.archiveofourown.org/users/Muriel_Perun/)**Muriel_Perun**.

Loki took the drink proffered by a servant – the seventh he’d been offered and accepted so far – and tasted the sweet-smelling, potent green liquid.  The one sip he permitted himself tingled on his tongue. 

He gave a merry smile to his closest companion, one of a small nearby circle hanging on his every word, all of them eager to be close to The Grandmaster’s new favorite.  Some, he knew, were guards, some were spies, and all were ambitious survivors.  Here, everyone spied on everyone else as they jockeyed for close position to the Master of this place.

Cerys, seated next to him on the couch, bent confidingly toward him and took advantage of Loki’s brief silence to make a cutting jest about an absent member of The Grandmaster’s entourage.  He laughed appreciatively.  She’d been one of En Dwi Gast’s favorites when he arrived and, he gathered, had been here far longer than most of the others.  Her boldness of tongue and attitude with those she considered beneath her contrasted with the garments that concealed her hair and body, leaving only her pale hands and shadowed face visible.  He was certain she masked far more than her skin.  He knew her type:  those who desired to be close to royalty, to those at the apex of power, who sought every advantage, told every lie, flattered and submitted and obeyed, not just out of necessity, but out of greed.

He could appreciate that.  He understood it all too well.  He’d experienced it from both vantage points, and played both roles:  Above, as prince of the realm, in Asgard.  (Below, as pawn and Thanos’s tool, in Sanctuary).

Cerys imparted another bit of gossip, louder this time, as the person involved was conveniently dead, capturing again the attention of everyone close by.

Loki took another tiny sip of the green alcohol and repressed a shudder –

_– being handed a glass – was it days past? Weeks?  (that smarmy smile – that obscene ageless infantile gaze – that insinuating voice – ).  ‘_ Try this.  I have something, um, _special._ I _know_ you’ll like it… _’ Gast had smirked, his eyes lively and amused._

Now, all this time later, it seemed his life here had been an endless procession of similar moments, moments he’d learned to ride just as he had ridden all the other chaotic whiplash changes in his life, doing anything, saying whatever he needed to survive, to advance, to seek advantage, to dream of even more.  There was power to be had here.  He only had to wait for the right chance to seize it.

_That first time in The Grandmaster’s bedchamber, Gast, smirking, had rubbed his thumb across Loki’s lips, holding out the glass with the other hand._ ‘An aphrodisiac on Bruniel’ _, the Grandmaster had claimed._

_He’d accepted the drink, of course, and brought the glass to his lips, putting just the right amount of interest and coy hesitation in his expression._

_Of course he drank it all.  A tiny spell assured him that drinking this concoction would not prove fatal._

_As for what else this particular concoction would do – he’d survived worse._

Much worse.

‘You do like your games,’ _Loki had purred, ready to agree to anything survivable in order to thrive here._

‘There’s nothing else’ **.**   _Beneath that avid smile, those ancient eyes, lurked the razor edge of truth, the words etched like brands upon his skin_ \- There’s **NOTHING** else – but games –

One of Loki’s hands drifted to his thigh and rubbed.  He stopped the motion when he realized what he was doing.  He kept his expression one of light amusement, sophistication, wit.  He’d practiced this look often enough when ambassadors and their daughters came to Odin’s court and it was his job to keep them entertained while ferreting out any secrets they might have, always for Father’s benefit.  It was easy enough to do the same for Gast’s hangers-on.  Charm them.  Entertain them. 

It was what they were all here for – Gast’s entertainment.

The laughter had quieted and he began talking again, some entertaining story about a magical realm, seizing the center of attention back from Cerys.  Gast’s sycophants kept listening, all the plots coiling in their minds kept hidden beneath their flattering gaze.  They all knew Loki was the ascendant star, the new focus of The Grandmaster’s fickle attention, and they all adjusted their strategies accordingly, always prepared for whatever whim Gast followed next.

Beneath the leather of his pants, his skin still tingled from the welts raised by the touch of the insinuating blue appendages of the creature that had been Gast’s most recent idea for foreplay.   It had been a less-than-pleasant experience, but he’d played his part to perfection to keep Gast’s lusts satisfied.  Just one of many games, all made of words and flesh and consumables of every kind.  The trick was to survive them all.

How long he could retain Gast’s erratic attention was only a guess, but he had plans upon plans in mind, and had been gathering up information while amusing everyone he came in contact with.

“I have not seen you before.” Loki brought his glass to his lips, studying Gast’s newest plaything.  Jarna was her name, and from her puffball hairstyle to her dangling earrings to her low-cut pale orange minidress she was dressed exactly like her compatriots in Gast’s harem.  For all The Grandmaster’s diverse tastes, for some reason he kept these particular women dressed exactly alike. 

Loki mimicked taking another sip of his cocktail while magicking a tiny bit of the liquid away.  A new spell, and another illusion he must maintain: it was best he be seen to consume as much alcohol and drugs as the rest of Gast’s entourage did.  It was best to pretend the same level of incapacity as others in these admittedly occasionally entertaining debauches.  He’d already seen what happened to those who fell from Gast’s favor.  There had been three executions this morning alone.

He had no intention of joining their number.

“Yes, she was recently Chosen,” Cerys informed him, her tone conveying ennui, as if she’d seen a thousand of these women before.  Perhaps she had.  The shadows cast by her elaborate crimson headdress, caught by more fabric beneath her chin, partially concealed her face, but her bright, intelligent eyes gleamed with curiosity and resentment.  She did not seem in the least bit impaired by all the alcohol she had consumed; perhaps she too had a trick to avoid intoxication.  She turned back to Jarna, granting her a warm and welcoming smile that did not conceal the flash of jealousy in her golden eyes.  “Tell her your story, Loki,” she urged, her expression betraying, for just a minute, both malice and calculation.  She turned to Jarna with wide-eyed falsified wonder and cooed, “Loki _says_ he _chose_ to come here,” she said as if she were tasting every word.  “He came to the Tower door _alone_ as if magically appearing from _nowhere_.  But that is not all.”  She stopped and glanced at Loki, her lips curving in a secretive smile.  “I’ll let you tell it.”

As if he needed her permission to speak.  He returned her smile with an equally false one, showing his teeth.  Jarna was staring at him with wide eyes.  He drew in a breath to speak –

 

_– falling – Falling – FALLING – **FALLING**  –_

_– He’d crashed-landed into piles of broken objects, the pain of something stabbing into his shoulder and the sharp stink of garbage awakening him from the images that had seized his mind in endless replay –_

_– Even as he remembered landing was often worse than falling –_

_– Heart hammering in his chest in that first moment of panic – not Sanctuary again – NO –_

 

“It’s quite simple,” he said.  “I’d heard so much about his famous Contest.  I had to see for myself.”

Jarna’s green-gold eyes were alive with interest.  She was making a good pretense of staring at him as if he were the only man alive, but he noted every brief instant when her gaze strayed from him to Gast.  It was an obvious tell:  her puffball hairdo bobbed with every tiny move of her perfect head, every slight turn of her slender neck.

He understood entirely.  He did the same thing.  As did they all, caught in the same orbit, revolving around the lodestone of power and death that was The Grandmaster.  Best to be alert to Gast’s every whim.  One slipup could be fatal.

“But you didn’t come on one of the ships?” she asked, as if she hadn’t just been told he hadn’t. 

“Oh no,” he said.  “You may not have heard, but I am quite a talented magician.”

“Sharis thinks,” Cerys said with a trace of malice, “that you were a stowaway on a ship.” 

He raised his eyebrows in feigned surprise.  “Oh yes – I recall now you and Sharis are often in true accord.”  He kept the edge of sarcasm out of his voice, but of course she instantly grasped his true meaning.  Her smooth façade slipped an instant, and then she gave him an enigmatic smile.  A pity Sharis wasn’t present; he did enjoy their endless rivalry for Gast’s attention.

“A magician!” Jarna explained, with a half-giggle as she finished her drink.  Another was in her hand an instant later, offered by one of the ever-present servants.  “So you magicked yourself here?”

“Why yes,” Loki said.  “There are many ways to travel the realms.  And when I arrived – “

_\-- cacophony resolved into individual noises –bangs hoots howling – he’d pulled himself upright, stared up into a sky full of portals disgorging unrecognizable junk.  Not Sanctuary then.  He looked around wildly, panic barely lessened.  All around him objects were crashing – and there, approaching, a wildly eclectic crowd, most of their faces concealed beneath fantastical masks._

_One cloaked figure asked, ‘_ Are you a fighter? Or are you food?’

_He’d reacted instantly with thrown knives, then concealed himself with invisibility before the bodies finished falling.  Without wasting a second –_ better to move than fall (into nightmare/memory, into the Void) ** _–_** _he shifted, grew feathers, sprouted wings, hollowed out his bones, and soared into the air.  Beneath him lay a crowded, ramshackle, stinking city.  After a confused moment, he caught his bearings and flew unerringly to where he sensed the heart of this Realm’s powers lay – an ugly tower rising from the city center.  Speeding toward his goal, he selected a landing spot at random, a carved head that looked vaguely like a horse in a helmet.  Grasping hold of one bit of the helmet with his talons, he gulped in air and frantically looked around him.  Outside the edges of the city more junk cascaded down from the portals, a rain of mostly unrecognizable debris, though here and there some bits and pieces were nearly whole.  His head swiveled as he tried to look everywhere at once, trying to get some understanding of where he was._

_Wherever he was, it was no place he could give a name to.  He had, when younger, explored beyond the Nine.  Even then, he had been astonished by the infinity of worlds and dimensions to explore.  He’d learned as much as he could of as many inhabited places as he could – but clearly he had not learned enough._

_Moments passed and nothing of significance happened.  He finally calmed enough to catch his breath, to study his surroundings in more detail.  Small ships were moving through the sky to random destinations.  Loud music was blaring from unseen sources, adding to the cacophony.  He could see various types of peoples crowding a warren of streets below.  Everywhere were buildings painted in the most blinding, clashing shades of every color imaginable.   His heart began racing again as recent memories violently resurfaced.  He stared blindly at the chaotic maze of mismatched streets and dead-end alleys that twisted and tangled and zigzagged around this tower, every muscle tense as an avalanche of grief slammed into him, so powerful it obliterated all thought._

_He felt a powerful urge to cry, but he could not shed tears, not in this form.  He screamed – a raptor’s shriek to the sky –_

_He’d lost everything.  Again._

_More than he had ever expected to lose._

_Home.  Identity.  Freedom.  Mother._

_All had been stripped from him, before._

_Now kingship.  Peace of a sort he’d never had before.  The ability to command, to prepare Asgard for the dangers ahead.  All his plans – now gone._

_Father._

_He’d barely grasped that final moment, the shock at the sight of pride and approval in Odin’s words and eyes –_ for **him** _–  before it had been torn away –_

_Brother?_

_Had Thor made it to Asgard? Hela would have followed a moment later.  A being capable of crushing Mjolnir – he would not have guessed anything in the universe, save its original makers, could have so much as scratched the surface of that weapon._

_But Hela had destroyed it._

_No.  Thor could not have prevailed against her.  Thor was already dead, or lost forever._

_And what of Asgard?  Hela had surely claimed the rulership by now.  It would take a force far more powerful than any he could currently master to claim it back._

_He shrieked again at the enormity of all he had lost.  More than he thought he **could** lose._

_He’d gotten too comfortable in his false skin on Asgard’s throne, gifting the populace with feasts and lulling them with plays and entertainments, erecting statues, soaking in the applause, making plans.  Always making plans._

_Everything had been good.  He’d rebuilt Asgard – and added even more to their fortifications, magical and otherwise, than had ever existed before.  He’d disentangled Asgard’s warriors from completely unnecessary battles to protect the rest of the Nine.  Let those other realms handle their own affairs for once; let them take care of the pirates that were always plaguing their space.  There was another, much larger battle looming, and he’d wanted every soldier at home.  The warriors had grumbled, but the artisans had been pleased.  Trade had boomed and he’d delighted in the praise of the people for their King.  He’d always known he could handle matters better than that old fool who had stolen him away –_

_(- My sons -)_

_If that idiot Skurge had done his job – why had he trusted him anyway? – he would have had ample warning to receive Thor as King and Father.  Though he supposed it was inevitable.  He should be used to Thor shattering his plans to pieces.  For all the winding sinuous ways Loki approached his goals, for all the thought and planning he put into his schemes, Thor inevitably took the straight path and smashed his way through everything._

_That cliff on Midgard.  Instead of the rage he’d expected, he’d received Odin’s calm approval.  Even – pride.  ‘_ My sons’, _he had said, and turned to him.  That look in his eyes – had Odin ever looked at him thus in the past?  He had been filled with so much sentiment, a tidal wave that threatened to pull him under at that moment of golden dissolution when all the things he might have said to the man who had raised him were silenced forever._

_But Thor –_

_Thor’s eyes had been filled with rage, his voice with recrimination, convinced that their father’s bizarre statements were yet the result of Loki’s spell._

_Loki hadn’t truly expected to be believed.  He was prepared for doubt.  It was still a sharp stab to realize Thor placed all blame on him, despite the fact that none of this was his doing._

_He’d prepared himself to fight Thor, already reaching for his knives – when **she** arrived - _

_It was all Odin’s fault.  And oh what a liar Odin had proved to be!  He could feel some slight kinship with Hela; he too had been imprisoned for what Odin had intended as a life sentence.  That glimpse of what Hela’s imprisonment had been showed him how much worse a fate Odin could have condemned him to._

_He wanted to blame Odin with that fierce burning rage that had seethed in him for so long at every rejection, every betrayal, every failed promise, every lie._

_He’d wanted that purity of fury, but it was more than he could find within himself now, his rage adulterated with the gifting of what he had so long desired and never received until too late._

**_– My sons –_ **

_Father was dead._

_Thor might well be.  And if he weren’t -_

_\-- it would be only by wildest chance that Loki would ever see his brother again._

_The shock of that pain stabbed through him and he drew breath to shriek again –_

_\-- then took to the skies instead, flying wildly in great aimless loops until polluted air and exhaustion forced him back to his perch, his bird heart pounding faster than he could have believed, his mind finally mercifully, briefly still._

_He’d think about all of this later.  Or never.  The ties were severed, the memories a useless burden.  Better not to think about it.  He was here – wherever_ **here** _was – and now.  He was in the present, not the past, and he needed to learn everything he could about his current situation so he could plan for the future.  So he could survive._

_Some time later, when he had recovered somewhat from the shock of this latest abrupt change in his fortunes, he transformed himself into a snake and slithered into the Tower via a ventilation shaft.  The guarding technology was easy enough to evade with small spells.  Once inside, still in snake form, he had spent some time in exploration and spying, until finally he decided he’d learned enough._

_Until it was time to present himself to The Grandmaster and carve out a place for himself in this new world, this Sakaar._

 

“But how did you arrive?” Jarna persisted.

“Why, on the back of a dragon,” he claimed, and Cerys laughed.

“Here, you haven’t seen that trick yet.”  She gave Loki a challenging smile.  “Show her.”

“I need a larger space for that one,” he demurred.  “But I have other tricks I can show you.”

_The Grandmaster had actually been impressed.  Having learned all he needed to know, Loki had slithered back out of the Tower, re-assumed the shape of a bird, and flown to ground level.  Once there he had produced an illusion of himself seated on the back of a fearsome red-and-gold dragon, its reins in his hand.  He’d added an ear-shattering roar and a puff of fire out of the beast’s gaping mouth.  Only a small flame –  no need to appear overly threatening._

_The illusion had been complete when his double had slipped out of an ornate bejeweled harness and saddle, slid to the ground and merged with him.  He’d vanished the dragon an instant later, then stood waiting, wearing a confident grin._

_He hadn’t had to wait very long._

 

“Here,” Loki said, making a complicated gesture.  Jarna oohed in delight as a tiny green-and-gold dragon appeared, its wings decorated with an array of jewels.  It soared up to a level of several feet, wheeled and circled, then appeared to alight upon her arm.  The image vanished when she jerked back in shock even though she couldn’t have felt a thing.

Cerys laughed.  “He’s really very good at what he does,” she said, her tone carrying multiple meanings.  Jarna looked at him appreciatively again, then snuck a quick glance in Gast’s direction before returning her attention to Loki.

_Loki had sensed the aura of age and power around Sakaar’s master the first instant he’d beheld him through serpent’s eyes.  Seeing him through his own eyes had not changed his opinion.  This would be a dangerous game – but it was the only one on offer._

_Now, brought by the equivalent of palace guards, standing before this world’s ruler, he realized the being before him was an Eternal._

_Legend had it, they were all quite mad._

_Legend, for once, had it true._

‘Well, you’ve missed our usual introduction.  Hasn’t he, Topaz?’ _The Eternal – whose name he learned later was En Dwi Gast - looked over his shoulder at an imposing armored woman with an unforgiving face.  She’d offered Loki an unimpressed sneer and rattled off in a monotone a brief and puerile description of Sakaar and The Grandmaster._

_Loki had listened attentively, not missing the way Gast was eyeing him._

‘Well now.  You’ve got tricks to show us.  Let’s have another one.’ _Gast had been conveyed forward by a circular metal platform.  He stopped just before Loki, hovering a couple of feet above the floor._ ‘Entertain me _._ ’  _He was leering, an obvious message that entertainment would be sought in various ways._

_Ah.  Another tool to use._

_Loki smiled seductively and obliged with variations on the same trick that had gotten him through the door, creating rare creatures with one illusion after another, a wild assortment of beautiful winged insects, fierce gorgeous predators, and hideously compelling reptiles.  Once or twice he allowed his audience to catch a glimpse of a holoprojector.  That too was illusion, but better they think him a fraud than a possible threat.  Best to be underestimated._

‘Interesting,’ _Gast had said._   ‘But I see how you do it.  Don’t you see it?’  _He gestured at Topaz who gave a curt nod, and at an armored woman with white facial tattoos who had just arrived.  The newcomer looked Loki over with a bored expression, but he detected a strong curiosity behind those disdainful eyes.  No one bothered to introduce him._  


‘Show me another one,’ _the new arrival demanded, and he’d repeated one of the tricks._

‘I see it too,’ _she stated flatly, then turned to Gast to demand payment for a creature she had just caught ‘for the arena’.  A three-headed ogre of some kind, strapped to a chair, was brought forward.  Loki watched the transaction proceed and conclude.  Any and all information was valuable._

_The woman took her leave with a smile for Gast, a sneer for Topaz, and nothing at all for anyone else.  Gast gestured for music to begin, then moved to inspect Loki closely.  ‘_ I like your style.’ _He circled around to look at him from all angles.  Loki kept his expression light and bright, exhilarated by this dance of deception, eliding any traces of fear over the prospect of yet another real or metaphorical fall._

_Gast stopped in front of him._ ‘You are pretty.  Entertain me.’

‘More illusions?’ _he asked coyly, lowering his lashes._

‘Mmm.  Let me think what I want first.  What do you think, Topaz?  Isn’t he pretty?’

_She grunted and looked at Loki as if she was picturing squashing him beneath her boot._

_Gast was grinning at him lasciviously._   ‘This one looks like a lot of fun.’ 

‘I think he looks like trouble,’ _Topaz stated flatly._

_Loki favored her with his most innocent expression.  The Grandmaster shot Topaz a look._ ‘Sometimes those are the best kind.  Does he look like he could be one of the best?’

_She gave Loki another appraising glance._ ‘He’s a fake.’

_Gast_ _snapped his fingers._   ‘Don’t be so hard on him.  You’re so hard on people, Topaz.’ 

 ‘That’s why you keep me around,’ _she said, deadpan._

_Gast chucked Loki under the chin.  Loki broadened his smile, lowered his eyelids._   ‘I bet you’ve got more of your little magic tricks up your sleeve.  Special ones.’

‘Oh, I do indeed,’ _Loki assured him._

‘Ah, but what am I thinking?  Drinks!  Drinks everyone!’

_A glass was instantly in Loki’s hand.  He took a cautious sip, and allowed his expression to show surprise as the harsh liquor burned all the way down.    Best to distract with false vulnerability, better to use the gloss of deception to keep them – keep_ him _\- from looking too closely beneath the facade.  Loki drank in sinful invitation, showing a teasing hint of tongue._

_Gast grinned and batted his eyelashes._ ‘A good time will be had by all.’  _His gaze encompassed the room._   ‘Or most, anyway.’

_Loki kept smiling.  He knew how to play games.  Odds were, he was being underestimated.  He intended to keep it that way._

 

“Or so I’ve heard, from those who would know.”  Cerys grinned a perfect smile, pleased with herself, then glanced to the side to where Gast had started playing some music.   Jarna was still staring at Loki, clearly impressed.  “Where are you from?  If you didn’t come on a ship for audiences for the Games and you weren’t brought in by a Scrapper how did you get here?”

He’d told this story several times already, first and most importantly to that decadent being who ruled the place.  At that first telling, he’d cut and stitched and reassembled the story even as he told it.  Now he made sure to repeat it near exactly as when he’d first told it to the Grandmaster.  Not entirely word for word; he didn’t want it to sound rehearsed.  Jarna smiled encouragingly and listened attentively as he began. 

“There was a king who was a great liar.”  _A good beginning, except – **my sons** – and the pang of those words, that last moment -  **Frigga would have been proud** – some starved thing inside him had seized those words, that look in Odin’s eyes; seized and held it close._

_So, a slight revision.  Different choices, change of cast and character._

“This king was a murderer, drunk on the blood of those he had slain and greedy for more.  His name was Bor and he slew an entire race of elves.  Or so he thought.”

_That first time, for Gast, he’d continued his tale smoothly, not giving his audience the slightest clue that he’d just changed the course of this story on the hinge of that all-too-brief visit with the man who had claimed him, at the very last possible moment, as his son._

_All the questions he could have asked Odin.  All the moments he would now never have.  All –_

**_Don’t think about it._ **

_Time to improvise, to write Odin out.  That play had closed, forever.  A sudden crushing wave of sorrow threatened to drown him.  He smiled and continued his tale, burying that pain yet one more time._

“He fought many wars in his lust for conquest and tribute, and though so much gold arrived the buildings were clad with it, nothing could sate his need.  He had three heirs – myself, another son, and the eldest – his mad child, a very wicked thing she was, inspired by Bor’s deeds and emboldened to do him even better.”

_A minor rewrite – no one would ever guess._

“But the elves returned and slew the Queen – ” _He’d nearly choked at this telling, and tried lying to himself, telling himself he had given Bestla this role.  He had only seen Bestla’s face in portraits, but he held fast to that image.  He paid no heed to the whisper of Frigga’s voice that he’d heard, sometimes, in the darkness of Odin’s chambers when old ghosts crowded in and sleep sneered at him and promised nightmares should he succumb._

“The king, maddened with grief, was careless and fell victim to his daughter who desired the throne for herself.”  _He skated over the memory of what he himself had done.  He had not slain Odin – merely removed him.  “_ She swore my brother and I would be next lest there be any left who might lay claim to the throne.  But the course of battle separated us and on the battle raged – ”

Jarna was hanging on his every word.  Always good to have an appreciative audience.  He played to her, aware that Cerys, who had heard it all before, was letting her gaze wander.  Out of the corner of his eye he saw Scrapper 142 had arrived at some point and was conferring with Gast.  She must have captured some other unfortunate warrior, confident in his brawn, all but certain to be slaughtered in the arena. 

The end of the story had been the hardest part.  There were just too many characters fighting for prominence in his mind; too many layers of pain; too much he did not want to remember.

_He’d stood before Gast.  He’d opened his mouth, making it up as he went along.  But when he reached the ultimate scene –_

_Thor, hurling him from the bridge._

(No.  He’d told that one before, believed it for a time when he’d crashed into Sanctuary and the Mad Titan found him and ripped his mind and body into jagged pieces and remade into a weapon – )

_Him, falling from the bridge, caught in the vast power of its destruction, as Thor and Odin, safe on what remained, stretched out their hands in a futile attempt to grasp his hand.  He desperately trying to reach their grasp but failing and falling, still looking up, seeing the tears streaming down their faces –_

(That one was always a crowd pleaser; the sobbing of the audiences at every performance a balm to his soul.  Some of it was even true.)

(Somewhere in the break between past and present, in one eternal moment he looked up into the eyes of his father _–_   _No, Loki_ and _–_ )

_No.  He’d already deleted Odin from this version.  Thor could stay as a supporting character.  Those complex relationships were just too much for this necessarily shortened version of his play._

_He wasn’t playing for sympathy here, but for something less – personal.  Admiration for his skills, his strength in battle - yes, that’s how this storyline would go._

_Time to improvise, to make a new story.  Himself a mighty warrior, faced with overwhelming odds._

_He wove a great tale of battling the remaining Dark Elves who were led by the traitor Hela.  She’d helped slaughter their forebears; why not invert the story and change the roles?  Brand her a traitor; that lowest of crimes; let her take the name he himself had been called._

_He filled the battle scenes with choice details highlighting his vast skills in combat and complicated illusions fighting overwhelming forces, slaying many even as he protected his less powerful brother from the horde._

_–_ _the brother who had insisted on still believing him a liar even when he had been, finally, telling nothing but the truth_ _–_  

“I know not my brother’s fate.  The last I saw of him, he had been felled by the elves’ monster.”  _Was Thor dead? **No** , he wouldn’t think of that either. _  _But the sorrow that entered his voice, entirely against his desire, helped the mood of the tale he was telling._ “I had fought my way through hundreds of them _(more like a dozen on Svartalfheim, but there was such a thing as dramatic license),_ but could not reach his side and only the Norns know if he lives.  The monster turned its attention to me _–_ ”

_(He’d really hated to lose this scene; Thor’s genuine grief at his approaching death had almost filled, for a time, a gap inside him that had always needed satisfaction.)_

_(Thor had claimed, on Midgard, that he had mourned for him.  Said it once not once, but twice; the first time years ago on that ledge on Midgard when he’d still been caught in Thanos’s trap, and again by the mortal home for the elderly before everything had changed, again.  Was that a lie?  That anger in Thor’s eyes at the penultimate moment before Hela’s arrival – that certainty that Thor blamed him for everything and was about to attack him – )_

“ _–_ and my sister joined it.  She shoved me off the bridge but I reached out and caught the edge at the very last.  There I was, clinging for my life from the edge of the bridge _–_ ”

Jarna was practically sitting on the edge of her seat, so intent was she on his tale.  So much had happened after that point, but he was satisfied now with his abridged and reworked version.  Certainly Gast had seemed impressed when he’d first told it _–_ though there had been a slight hint of ironic disbelief on his smiling face.

He opened his mouth to continue, but at that moment, elsewhere in these interlocking chambers he heard agonized pleas for mercy. 

No one moved for a second.  No one turned to look.  He took a sip of his drink, holding it just a bit too tightly, every sense alert to danger.  The smell hit him; the ghastly stench from that liquefying weapon Gast always wielded with such relish.  Looking around, he saw that the expressions on every nearby face revealed a bit too much wariness – and for some, outright fear _–_ before all their masks fell back into place and they resolutely focused their attention back on Loki.

Better not to look to see what was going on only a short distance away.  Better not to know.

Back to the story, then.  “How did I arrive?”  He paused, waiting until he had Jarna’s full attention again.  “As I clung to the edge I looked down.  There are many pathways near Asgard, and I had long since learned how to choose the paths I wished to travel.  There was a wormhole in space and time beneath me.”

**_– FALLING - Sanctuary – no realm no crevice no barren moon –_ **

“At that moment…” He gave her a bright brittle smile, concealing the jagged edges beneath, grateful again for his good fortune to have landed on Sakaar rather than **_there_**.   “…I let go.”  He laughed, ready to continue the story, to explain why he had chosen Sakaar –

“Loki!  Loki!  Over here!”

Shock brought him to his feet at the sound of the last voice he ever expected to hear again.  Loki stared at Thor’s grinning face.  His brother was a few feet away, trapped inside one of those confinement chairs Gast loved to use.

_Thor – here?  How? Why?_

Not lost to him, after all.   Relief, joy, dismay, battled for possession of his mind.  Thor could tear down everything he had worked for here just as easily as he had destroyed Loki’s kingship. 

All of his questions still demanded answers – answers he must forego for now.  His role demanded pretense, something he was at ease with, as comfortable as an actor’s cloak. 

All that mattered now was survival.  Surprisingly, he realized that included Thor.

_\- Thor was alive. He hadn't lost_ **everything** \- 

He had to think fast.   Thor would be sent to the arena.  A fighter like him – certainly Thor could withstand whatever gladiators Gast would pit him against.  That would give Loki enough time to come up with a new plan, one that included them both.

He adjusted his thinking.  New lies needed to be told.

“Excuse me one second…” he said and stepped over, prepared with truth or falsehood or something in between. 

 


End file.
